More Records Subpoenaed In Corruption Probe

March 15, 1985|By Charles Mount.

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed four years of License Court records, apparently as part of an investigation of possible corruption in the way city licenses are issued and licensing regulations are enforced.

In addition, Cook County Circuit Court sources said that federal investigators have spent the last month in the records vault of Traffic Court, examining files of drunken driving cases.

Circuit Court sources said the investigators examining the Traffic Court files apparently are looking for patterns to see if certain lawyers regularly won acquittals from certain judges on drunken driving cases.

They said the new subpoenas for License Court records apparently were issued in an effort to look for the same type of patterns.

Violations of Chicago licensing laws are prosecuted in the court. Circuit Judge Frank Salerno had presided over License Court from 1982 until last month, when he sought reassignment amid reports that his court had come under federal scrutiny during the investigation of licensing irregularities.

Though federal prosecutors have said very little about the investigation, one of them disclosed during a court hearing in January that the investigation involves a judge, as many as three Chicago aldermen and a large number of city employees, including police officers.

Sources said the grand jury is investigating reports that city employees took bribes to issue city business licenses and to fix cases involving license violations.

Salerno, a judge since 1976, was transferred to Eviction Court on Feb. 5 by Donald O`Connell, acting presiding judge of the 1st Municipal District. At the time, O`Connell quoted Salerno as saying he had done nothing wrong.

The subpoenaed License Court records include computer printouts listing cases by number and all the plaintiffs and defendants in each case assigned to the court from 1980 through 1984.

The grand jury already has some License Court case files as part of the records subpoenaed earlier in the Greylord investigation.

Sources said that with the newly subpoenaed computer printouts, investigators can more easily locate the case files they want to examine.

The grand jury earlier subpoenaed extensive records of the City Department of Consumer Services.

The records include inspectors` reports, citation books and lists of violation tickets that later were dismissed in court at the city`s request. The department`s personnel files also were subpoenaed.

The federal licensing investigation was disclosed by Joseph Duffy, an assistant U.S. attorney, at a sentencing hearing Jan. 31 for Victor Albanese, 49, a former city employee who had pleaded guilty to extorting $5,000 from a tavern owner seeking a liquor license.

Duffy told Judge Milton Shadur of U.S. District Court that Albanese was involved in a much wider corruption scheme. Albanese was sentnced to eight years in prison.